Magqubu and I had
surveyed all the wilderness
trail routes and completed our planning.

He knew what was at stake
because he would be the eyes and ears of the trail party, and if anything went
wrong on the first trail, in bureaucratic
language, we would be for the chop as there were, however, still
officials who
opposed the trails.

The Natal
Parks Board head office reported that no one in the public had shown any
interest in making a reservation.

There were the usual news stories too
of how we were stopping development of tourist camps.

Roy Rudden, a
newspaper friend on the Sunday
Times, took some beautiful photographs in the game reserve and wrote a story
called "Adventure at a Pound a Day." Placards emblazoned with these words
appeared throughout South Africa on a Sunday morning.

On Monday the switchboard of
the headquarters of the Natal Parks Board was jammed with calls from humans
trying to make reservations.

For the first time in the history of modern South Africa, humans were
going to be walking trails in the
wilderness inside a game
reserve among wild animals and sleeping out on the veld.

This was a
revolutionary concept.

Heretofore visitors to game reserves and national parks throughout
most of eastern and southern Africa were required to stay in a vehicle and many
bureaucrats were against the idea of allowing trailists into the
wilderness.

On
March 19, 1959, Magqubu and I lead the first
officialwilderness trail in the
Mfolozi game reserve for the Natal Parks Board. It was the culmination of many
years of hard work and the start of a new
dimension in wildlife
conservation.

Magqubu led the trail party of six humans along the steep
path down from Momfu Cliffs to the
Mpafa River, then followed the rhino paths south to Mahobosheni, where the
donkeys had taken the mess kit and the tents.

It was getting
dark, and we all relaxed because we
only had a hundred meters to walk to the camp.

There was a faint sound
in a nearby wallow, and I turned to see the glint of light on the horn of a
black rhino.

Before I could even shout the black rhino came
storming toward us, snorting and crashing
through the bush.

The trailists performed undreamed of physical
achievements, pulling themselves up into trees with one
hand or scattering in all directions,
shouting at the tops of their voices.

When the black rhino had gone and
everyone was together again, we found no one was hurt beyond a few scratches
and a sprain, Magqubu said, "The amadhlozi were with
us today."

I knew he was right,
because if the black rhino had killed anyone, the bureaucrats who were against
the trails would have ensured the concept
died an early death.

Later in the evening Magqubu laughed and laughed.

He showed how the black rhino charged and the acrobatics of the humans
going up the trees, their shouting and their running.

I was to witness
this many times.

It was for him hilarious to see white humans scatter
when a black rhino charged.

This was his cinema.

Magqubu was
animated by this category of excitement, and in later years when
we were on trails he liked nothing more than to see humans running pell mell
for the trees when a black rhino threatened.

Magqubu thought it was
even funnier if in their haste they climbed a thorn tree.

His
descriptive powers were used until everyone was screaming with laughter, and he
would walk ahead of the group making the farting noise with his lips, his
shoulders shaking with mirth.

Magqubu was never crude, but he was very
basic.

I did not dare tell some of the humans the names Magqubu gave
them - they would have been mortally offended.

Magqubu's eyes and ears
missed nothing, and the names were often unpalatably true.Throughout
history men and women have been entranced by wild Africa. It has great depth of
soul, and humans are gripped by its strange, brooding spirit. The ancient
Egyptians, Greeks, Arabs, and
Romans took expeditions into its
heartland.

The Arabs said, "Once you have tasted of the waters of
Africa, you need to return to have your fill thereof."

The Romans said, "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi" (Out of
Africa always something new). Part of their
empire extended into North
Africa, and they were affected by the rhythms of this ancient continent. They
captured many wild animals - lion, rhino, and
elephant - and took them across
the Mediterranean to the great Coliseum: They used cannabis to calm the
animals.

F. C. Selous was
Theodore Roosevelt's guide, and he had once hunted at Ndumu. He had a great
influence on Theodore Roosevelt's life. They spent weeks together in the
African wilderness hunting
rare species for the Smithsonian Institution.

One can imagine the long
conversations they had around the fire at night, with lions roaring, hyena whooping,
elephants trumpeting, jackals
screaming. In the morning, when the thermals
swirled, they would have listened to the fish eagle, its long call piercing the
stillness and echoing over the lakes,
forests, and swamps.

Theodore Roosevelt was the rock upon
which the conservation movement was built in the USA, and it was due to him
that America became the leader in
environmental protection, the establishment of national parks, and wildlife
management. You need only glance at the index of Bill S 1176, the 1957 Senate
hearings about the National Wilderness Preservation Act, to see the profound
influence Theodore Roosevelt had on
conservation in the US. He foresaw the conservation problems that were to face
America.

Theodore Roosevelt
was the driving force in the America Bison Society. It was estimated that there were sixty
million bison on the plains when Lewis and Clark crossed the North American
continent in the early 1800s.

Theodore Roosevelt had difficulty in
finding eight hundred bison at the turn of this century.

I can imagine
that in his mind's eye he saw once
again the vast herds of African buffalo and antelope, and the
memory drove him on to
save the remaining bison.

In 1908
Theodore Roosevelt brought all the
state governors in the United
States of America to a conservation conference, and it was from this
conference that the National Park Service became established in 1916.

There is hardly a country on Earth today that does not have a national park,
and the African experience of Theodore
Roosevelt was the motivating force.
Theodore Roosevelt and F. C. Selous
kept up a correspondence until F. C. Selous was killed by a sniper's bullet in
Tanganyika in World War I.

Why is it that so many people have been caught in the
spiritual web of Africa?

Is it not because it was here that mankind took
its first steps and emerged from the darkforests to walk upright into the
savannah?

In a BBC interview with John Freeman,
Carl Gustav Jung said, "We do not come
onto the Earth tabula rasa."

Three million years of
evolution in Africa is imprinted upon the human
psyche, and perhaps this leads to a
deep yearning to return, to see the red earth, to
hear the cry of the fish eagle, the
roar of the lion, and the scream of the
elephant.

Carl Jung wakes, traveling in a
train, at sunrise, and on a
steep red cliff he sees and describes in Memories, Dreams, Reflections
"a slim, brownish-black figure... motionless, leaning on a long spear. ..."

Africa is HUGE !!!

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